Jake Atlas and the Hunt for the Feathered God by Rob Lloyd Jones

Author:Rob Lloyd Jones [Jones, Rob Lloyd]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781406382020
Publisher: Walker Books
Published: 2018-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

21

I think the rain had stopped by the time we reached Alpha Squad’s camp, but it was hard to tell. So much rainwater dripped from branches and sprayed off leaves that it still seemed to be pouring. I guessed it was late in the afternoon, but it was tricky to know that either. So little daylight found its way through the jungle canopy that it always seemed like dusk.

I felt like shattered glass. My jaw was swollen from the bullet ant sting, my side throbbed from the mudslide, and I was scratched and bruised from crawling in the cave. My feet were raw and blistered from the trek, and I can’t tell you how badly I itched. Every single part of me was bitten. I had a bite on my lip, my eyelid, inside my ear, even. What sort of creature bites you inside your ear?

The moment we reached camp, I clambered into my hammock and pulled the net over the top. I know that sounds bad. If that symbol I’d photographed in the cave was the second marker, then we needed to act fast. Sami’s life depended on it. But I had to rest, just for a bit.

After half an hour, Mum brought me a bowl of warm, grey mush – another of Alpha Squad’s jungle rations. That food was depressing when you were tired and hurt and desperate for some sort of comfort. Dad’s “food training” back home hadn’t included freeze-dried cardboard-tasting gruel. Right then I would have done anything for a milkshake and a cheeseburger. I stared at Alpha Squad’s drone, wondering if we could programme it to fly out of the jungle and bring back some proper food.

Mum rubbed some cream on my jaw where I’d been stung. She looked at me and stroked my hair in a way that she hardly ever does. With her other hand she slid her necklace out from under her shirt and clutched her amulet.

“Are you sure you’re not hurt?” she asked.

I nodded.

“You’re lucky to be alive,” Mum said.

“I’m OK, Mum, thanks.”

“No. You are lucky.”

Hang on. She was telling me off!

Pan leaned from her hammock. “Jake may have found the marker in that cave, Mum.”

“Jake hurled himself into a pit with no idea what was down there,” Mum replied. “He could have fallen into a trap.”

“He didn’t fall. He used his bungee. And there was no trap.”

“You don’t consider a wild jaguar a trap?”

“We don’t know it was a jaguar.”

“Well, it wasn’t a racoon! If Jake had properly observed his surroundings, as we have trained you, he might have noticed the animal’s spores.”

“Spores?” I asked.

“Its poo,” Pan explained. “How was he supposed to see that? And if he hadn’t gone further, then we’d not have found that carving. If that is the marker, then we need it to save Sami.”

“I have known Sami for a lot longer than you, young lady,” Mum snapped. “He would not want to be saved if it meant either of you were harmed.”

“That’s not your choice to make, Mum.

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